


Technician

by OutreOtter



Series: Congregation [2]
Category: Alien: Isolation (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Gen, PTSD, Post-Canon Fix-It, Robot/Human Relationships, Slow Burn, Survivors Guilt, mild descriptions of nudity, mild robogore, samuels survives AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-21
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-04-05 17:20:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14049072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OutreOtter/pseuds/OutreOtter
Summary: Away from Sevastopol, and plunged into something questionable in whether it's better or not, Ripley and her rather glitched out friend try to weave together something of a life in a broken down RV, in a trailer park of less than great repute.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Heya, welcome back. Good to see you again.

“Amanda, I… am having a bit of trouble identifying this…” Samuels gestured a bit helplessly towards the cockpit window, “This build.”

 

“Yeah. Not exactly anywhere in the books,” Ripley offered very helpfully, biting the inside of her cheek to keep a straight face.

 

She expected some degree of annoyance at his reaction to their mode of transport, for how far it fell below the impeccable standards of the Company, or even the practical standards of Colonial Federal law. Yet somehow, the look on his face couldn't be described as anything but pure _concern_ , lacking in any of the disdain or repulsion she somewhat assumed would also be there.

 

It was actually kind of endearing.

 

“Is that a different – that’s the power turbine of an M-Class engine. Inside a Skejad shaft.”

 

“Yep.”

 

“They – that's impossible, they run on two completely different fuel types.”

 

“Yeah, but combinable as long as you take it easy on the burnout,” with a tiny bit of glee, she pointed out the functioning collection of engines, scrapped from dozens of differing builds, at either side of the bristling aft of the mass of welded, contorted metal, “Looks like Tako is actually running on six types of fuel right now. Too bad we don't have any to trade in, they'd probably give top price for uranium.”

 

“Six… types…?” he repeated faintly.

 

Definitely endearing. She gave up trying to suppress her grin as his expression grew more disturbed the longer he stared at the vessel.

 

A hard pang hit her chest as she found herself wishing Taylor was there to match his expression.

 

Two Company execs, fresh from the clean, strict, sterile order of their own little world, thrown into the hostile chaos of the universe outside. And only one barely lived to tell the tale and pull _her_ ass out of the fire, while the other died less than a meter away from her, though she might as well have been on the other side of the galaxy for all the good she was to her. Her stomach clenched, and she swallowed down the sour taste at the back of her mouth. Regret and remorse were both useless here. And she'd been useless enough in the past few days to last the rest of her life.

 

Wrapping numb pragmatism around herself like a favorite blanket, she followed his gaze up to one of the towers that jutted out from the central structure – a repurposed hull of a luxury cruiser from three decades ago, riveted and welded rudely into the bridge of a war cruiser to complete one ‘leg’. Four more attached to the central hub, like spokes on a wheel.

 

“Considering it's called ‘octopus’, I'm a little disappointed there's only five legs.”

 

“Amanda, there is absolutely no feasible way for this… vessel,” she felt an echo of her previous amusement at how Samuels had to practically force himself to call the Convoy by that term, “To travel at any capacity of speed.”

 

“I won't argue that. It's not meant for speed travel. In fact, you’re probably looking at its max output. We’re going to be here a while, Chris. It's likely going to take months to get to wherever we’re going to wind up. It's not ideal, but it's our only option for now.”

 

“This isn’t safe. I won't presume to be past your judgment for sound structural integrity but-”

 

She caught sight of a received message in the IGAR interface, and quickly opened it, “There's our docking location. And you're right. It's usually not up to any quality above ‘better than the vacuum of space’, which is why they'll never turn down an engineer. A Convoy will always have a small army of us constantly gluing it all back together as it falls apart.”

 

She turned to him again, and tried for her best comforting smile, “If it makes you feel any better, Tako is in way better shape than Sevastopol was.”

 

“That's an appallingly low standard.”

 

She snorted, “My standards are right where they need to be.”

 

Unceremoniously dumping the last pieces of the control panel casing onto the scrap metal pile, she settled into the newly vacated pilot’s seat, and engaged the steering, “Now would be your moment to make yourself scarce, by the by. We'll be getting close enough that you could get spotted as a second passenger.”

 

Samuel’s voice floated up from behind her seat, “High security for such a lax build.”

 

There was that annoyance she'd been waiting to feel.

 

“Chris, I need you to pull your head out to the real world here for me. We’re boarding a vessel loaded with _not friendly people_. You can bet your programming that any new boarding is getting scoped for looting. Best chance is to look like it's not worth the effort, which we are carrying off pretty well in this wreck. Guess what would change that?”

 

“Aren't there… rules ? A code of conduct? _Anything_?”

 

“Not really. Just big fish and small fish, and we’re minnows. We're seeing to that, with you staying out of sight.”

 

“ _Amanda,_ it's not my safety that's my _concern_.”

 

Huh. That was definitely the most exasperated she'd heard him yet.

 

“You don't have to worry about me. I'll handle myself. I've been on these before and know how to keep my head down.”

 

“And if you don't keep your head down enough?”

 

“We're fucked,” she said in a sarcastically bright tone, “But I like my chances for this round better than the last one.”

 

There. Let him chew on that one. If he showed up to apply for the job of caretaker, he showed up fifteen years too late. Or maybe, just maybe, he doesn't want to have to pull another rescue for her. For all that went tits up on Sevastopol, maybe she did need a nanny.

 

Shoving the self-pitying line of thought to the side, she followed the directions to the shuttle bay arm, (an actual piece of a modular shuttle bay she noted with some relief), pulling the vessel nose up to match the open dock’s alignment.

 

She _would_ do better this time. She _had_ to.

 

“I'll check out how close the neighbors are while I'm trading and getting supplies. We might have to deal with typing our conversations if they're too cozy. No more talk ‘til I give the all-clear.”

 

“Affirmative.”

 

She leaned over the back of the seat to stare at him, but could only see his knees and bare feet. Was that a reflexive response, or another bit of sass? And was that sass something he reserved for people he felt comfortable around, or was this another side effect of his fried processor, like the sudden appearance of his affectionate, tactile behavior?

 

She hadn’t minded it – were she to be wholly honest with herself, she outright enjoyed it, even if it was somewhat akin to chaperoning a cuddly drunk friend after the worst night out in history.

 

So what if that meant getting to feel a soothing touch she might’ve not otherwise been able to enjoy. Sue her. She refused to do penance for accepting the comfort he initiated, especially when it sometimes seemed to be the only thing that calmed him down.

 

Would he behave in the same manner, were his processor fully functioning? Would he have wanted to, but held back in the name of following some shit subjugation protocol written into his code? Damned if she knew.

 

What she _did_ know is from the day she met him, he functioned on a separate level from the orders dispensed to him from the Company. Like Weyland-Yutani would knowingly guide her anywhere near the truth of her mother’s fate. His suicidal attempt to override APOLLO, and his admittance at bypassing his own code both were the final nails in the coffin of any illusions of him being part of some elaborate bullshit scheme set up by the Company.

 

She trusted him – had faith in the sincerity of his intentions.

 

What fueled that sincerity though… remained unclear, too unclear to even try touching by this point, when both of them needed to completely focus on survival.

 

Gut the questions, wrap it all up in a bow of practical reasoning about preserving heat, and keeping Samuels out of a total systems crash, it all seemed absolutely innocuous, needing no immediate action or thought. She could place it back on its designated shelf, and keep napping on that nice, warm chest, secured in place with a gentle drape of arms across her back.

 

The strobes in the dock ceased flashing, and after turning over a panel to check the outside pressure, she stepped her way through the scrap piles to her E.V.A. suit, reassembled to be easily slung over her shoulder. Samuels had already crawled his way into the space where the power coupling was. At least he still retained previous conversation information well. She just hoped he remembered to fasten the grill from the inside like they'd discussed. It would be an utterly useless measure if any potential looters had a decent torch on them, but it'd buy them time.

 

Could the outside paneling be removed somehow to give him a way out, should it come to that?

 

She started at a sudden whoosh of air, immediately reaching for her shotgun before she registered the origin of the unfamiliar sound – where Samuels disappeared. Swinging her head down, she peered at him through the grate in askance. He gestured at her to move back. She slowly complied, staring at the space with equal parts curiosity and bemusement. The whooshing noise repeated, and a cloud of dust puffed out.

 

She didn't recall that much dust being in there – or him being that fastidious. Then she noticed the dust quickly settling, making the floor look as if nothing passed through for weeks.

 

Clever bastard.

 

Okay. Retaining information, complex problem solving, formulating and carrying out long term planning, she noted thoughtfully. Maybe he really will be okay on his own for a few hours.

 

She leaned back down and gave him a quick thumbs up. He blinked a bit back at her, before awkwardly lifting his arm to return the gesture.

 

Bolstered with a bit more confidence than she had before, she shucked the top half of her jumpsuit, rolling it to her waist and knotting the sleeves in place to cover all the Company marks. she checked and loaded each chamber of her revolver, slipped the spare clip into her pocket, the gun in the other, shouldered her pack, and hoisted up the suit into her arms. The shuttle’s doors barely had room to open in the cramped little dock. Just as well. Meant she could get in and out without being visible from the hall entrance.

 

God she’d somehow forgotten how an absolute _din_ of noise pervaded Convoys.

 

Unlike the faint creaks, howls, and groans from the otherwise dead silent Sevastopol, the walls practically _thrummed_ with activity, thousands of voices, clatterings and buzzings of tools, footfalls, that never quieted at any hour. In a way, it made the hollow exhaustion of her mind, and the rapidly spreading ache running through every part of her body that much more surreal and out of place, as if the past week was nothing but a particularly vivid nightmare she couldn’t shake.

 

Perhaps she erred on the side of over-cautiousness for how quiet they needed to be.

 

Perhaps.

 

Locking the shuttle down behind her, she opened the hallway door, and immediately washed over by an overwhelming wave of smells, of cooking food, garbage, detergents, sweat, mustiness, everything that accompanied so many people being crammed into such a small space.

 

The door to the bay opened to a narrow alleyway, spanned by lines of drying laundry that she carefully ducked her way through, until she came out to a main thoroughfare streaming with people. The walls were stacked high with improvised shelters built of scrap, steam and smoke pouring out of windows and doors, lit with mishmashes of shop lights, string lights, bare bulbs hung from wires that joined coiling snakes of cables that draped and tangled overhead. Shopkeeps shouted their wares over the constant river of conversations, clangs, calls and she had to fight the urge to retreat back to the shuttle bay.

 

Get a _grip_ , Ripley, she berated herself, scanning each passing waist for a firearm. She knew these places. Knew these people. She was more like them than anyone else in the universe. Did the time she spent in corporate stations really erase every last bit of good sense she had, or did she still have a couple of brain cells left to rub together after all?

 

Propelled forward by her self-applied kick in the rear, she slung the suit over her shoulder, and joined into the throng for the nearest trade post.


	2. Chapter 2

“A month,” Ripley muttered under her breath, eyeing the half-full bottle of soap in disgust, “A whole damn month this was supposed to last.”

 

She poured another dollop into a once-white washrag, and took it to herself again, grimacing at the filth she could _still_ feel coming up with the swipes of cloth on every inch of her skin. Accustomed as she was to grime and oil, the addition of silty soot, and what was starting to feel like a permanent fossilization of sweat, pushed her long past even her relaxed limits.

 

But the worst was the slime – the revolting, viscous gunk she practically waded through in that nest in the reactor, coating her arms up to her elbows, dripping down the back of her neck. It had dried, but instantly rehydrated under the spray of the water. Nothing short of removing the skin cells it attached to could get it off. She could still feel it in her hair, clinging to the strands even after a third of her soap and a half hour’s worth of scrubbing.

 

The large, angry swathes of yellow, blue, and purple bruising covering her torso and legs made her shie from purchasing a scrub brush, a decision she began to regret on the third round of scouring with the utterly useless washrag.

 

Right now, Ripley was giving some serious consideration to stepping into one of the equipment cleaning bays and spraying down with the pressure washer.

 

Her right shoulder seized as she tried to reach around to her back again, prompting a grunt of pain and a curse. Giving up with an exasperated sigh, she slapped the button outside the stall, charging for another two minutes of water to rinse off.

 

At least the water was actually hot. Gloriously, deliciously hot. The frigid cabin of the shuttle settled a chill into her bones, that only contact with Samuels’ overheating frame alleviated, up to now. A swell of guilt pushed at her chest at the thought of him having to tolerate that level of filth, nevermind being covered with his own layer of soot, blood, and whatever came off her.

 

Adding a washtub, solvents, and an additional pack of rags to her mental shopping list, she wrapped a towel around her torso, making for the main bath – feeling at least clean enough to pass muster among the other denizens making use of it.

 

Practically leaning into the rush of hot air that billowed from the great bath chamber, she paused to survey the people already in the heated pool. The echoing of raucous laughter from a group in the corner bounced around the cavernous room, rolling and distorting into a choir of discordant roars and shrieks, and the handle of her caddy slipped from her hand. She bent to regather her scattered bathing supplies with shaking fingers, more than happy to focus on staring down anyone who lifted their gaze at her fumble, instead of the vacant stare of a corpse suspended in black, that refused to leave her mind’s eye.

 

_Get. A. Grip._

 

The few lookers on dropped their focus when she shot it right back at them, and she stalked her way to the far side of the pool, gingerly navigating the slick tiles into the water. Sinking in until the water reached her chin, she focused hard on the heat, trying in vain to chase off the memory of the nest.

 

Ripley raked her hands against her hair, testing where the godawful slime began, finding some as near as an inch from her scalp. Dragging her palms down her face, she flopped back against the wall of the pool. She was going to have to cut it off, wasn't she?

 

Did her mother encounter something like that nightmare?

 

_I'm ok… I'm stuck on this lifeboat a long way out…_

 

The memory of her recorded voice ushered in a different, more faded memory — slapping tiny hands gleefully on the surface of the water, cackling as her mother, perched on the side of the tub, cast up the towel she held in her hands like a shield, laughing too, before swiping a hand in to splash her back in retaliation. The whole bathroom wound up covered with water before the ensuing war finished, and her very damp mother sternly telling her that was a one-time only deal, her eyes still sparkling with mirth as she dried her off.

 

_I love you, sweetheart._

 

Familiar aches squeezing her heart felt both like a blessing and a curse. How many lonely moments had she spent, lost in imagining her mother left for a better life, of tiring of her tantrums, her clumsy breaking of things, her failures compiling into something past tolerance? If she had just tried a little harder to be good, she would come back. If she'd just been a better daughter, she wouldn't have left to begin with.

 

She grew. She learned. She all too quickly gained appreciation for the cruel necessity of her mother's need to leave her behind, to feed her, shelter her, insure her future. How willingly humanity took advantage of vulnerability. How vulnerable her mother, her invincible hero, had been. But those lonely, painful moments already embedded into her soul, a hard bedrock laying beneath cynicism and a seething anger at how _wrong_ it all was. For herself, for her mother, and for the countless others she saw suffer as she did. At how little she could do, and how much others _could_ do — but chose to not.

 

This latest round of evidence of the truly hostile nature of existence just threw more fuel onto the slow burning vendetta she held against it.

 

It was getting hard to not let that burn spread. It already licked at the dry, withered, unattended love for her mother, threatening to turn it to ash. Yet, finally having that doubt slain to rest — the question of whether she'd abandoned her denied beyond all speculation, brought a shot of green back to the bare branches.

 

And beneath the horror, of knowing what her mother knew, of what nightmare bound them together, even though they haven't seen one another in over a decade, a hard, unmoving truth lay.

 

_We shared the same experience. We both survived. She survived. She could still be out there._

 

Ripley held that truth in her heart, and wished she knew what to do with it.

 

A second session of scrubbing managed to clear off the rest of the filth on her, even the last bits of slime on her skin. But her hair still remained coated. Standing in front of a long mirror, lined with dozens of other people tending to their appearance, she held out a small razor blade dug out from her bag, and began severing the strands where the slime ended. She reached somewhere around the three-quarters point, before an exasperated voice spoke up at her elbow.

 

“Woman. _What_ are you doing?”

 

She slowly lowered her arms, putting on her best deadpan stare as she turned, “Haircut.”

 

“That’s no haircut. That’s a mangling, and disrespect to good taste everywhere,” her accuser addressed her through their reflections, carefully gliding a shaver over a dark chin, framed regally by the white of the towel wrapped around her hair.

 

Ripley snorted, returning to her work, “I’m an engineer. I don’t do taste.”

 

“Listen, just ‘cuz I have to be surrounded by poor life choices day-in-day-out here, doesn’t mean I have to sit down silent, and witness them before my very eyes,” her neighbor bent to a bag, a luxuriantly silky affair with a silvery clasp, retrieving a card and holding it out to her between two glossily manicured nails, “Tell ‘em Dalia sent you.”

 

Cautiously accepting it, she read over the printed text that simply read _Salon_ , with location information underneath.

 

“Ripley,” she offered back as introduction, “Your place?”

 

“Their best client,” Dalia corrected her with the patience of a teacher with a particularly slow student, swiping the last traces of shaving cream from her face, and applying a subtly sweet smelling lotion, “They do magic there, even your head isn’t beyond hope in their hands. Seriously girl, has no one even taught you how to do a ponytail cut?”

 

“Wasn’t high on anyone’s priority list,” Ripley replied coolly, fishing through her damp, wild tresses, feeling a strange lightening in her chest as she felt no more of the disgusting slick. She gathered up the wad of cut strands, nodding to Dalia on her way back to the locker bay, “I’ll check it out.”

 

“You do that, Ripley.”

 

 

* * *

  
  


Never had shutting the door to the incinerator felt so cathartic.

 

Slime soaked sneakers and socks. Clothing and underwear worn for a gruelling week, stamped with the mark of an organization that made a damn good attempt at killing her. Hair she never wanted to touch again for as long as she lived. All headed straight for instant destruction.

 

The new pants she wore were baggy, but fit right around the waist, and had plenty of pockets and loops, the cheap sneakers a bit tight, the jacket a little long, but nothing that cuffing the sleeves didn’t take care of. A new baseball cap crammed over the mop of her hair.

 

Imperfect, but light years beyond how she felt a couple of hours ago.

 

Hoisting up the tub full of clothing and supplies onto her hip, she started for home – did she really just call that little emergency shuttle home? Fatigue must be getting to her. She eyed one of the cardboard crates with a slight grin. Good thing she had the perfect antidote for that.

 

An eruption of shouts echoing down the hall snapped her back from the spoils of her hunt. Automatically darting into an empty doorway, her fingers closed around her revolver, she waited. Pounding feet dashed past, furious threats following them. Their arms were haphazardly loaded with supplies, a ringleader barking navigation as they split off into a scattering of alleyways.

 

Looters, coming directly from where they’d docked. Her stomach clenched coldly. She hadn't caught a good enough look to see if any of her possessions were among the stolen goods. Even if Samuels hadn't been taken, it didn't mean he wasn't seen. Waiting until the passage settled back into its usual mill, she pulled her supplies closer to herself and set for the shuttle bay, the lazy haze the heat of the bath set into her mind wiped clean.

 

What would she even do if she got there, and he was gone? She'd have to start inquiries about the gangs on Tako (why hadn't she already — why hadn't she taken this more seriously — why hadn't she stayed longer — why hadn't she come up with a better plan), she'd track them down, so help her, she'd rip apart _every miserable piece_ of this place until she found him.

 

She practically charged into the shuttle bay and closing the hatch behind her, cautiously surveyed around the vessel, revolver drawn. Finally, after checking the doors for signs of tampering, and finding none, she opened the shuttle.

 

The inside remained just as she had left it. Small piles of scrap. Weaponry stacked in the corner, temptingly out in the open. Dust by the torn out panels undisturbed.

 

She crouched to where Samuels was. The tightness in her chest instantly released as a sigh as she saw him peering right back at her.


	3. Chapter 3

“Hey,” Ripley greeted Samuels softly, shaking off the lingering panic the looters set off, “Things are loud enough in this place we can talk as long as we keep it down. How you holding up?” 

 

“My internal temperature is steady. For the rest… as well as can be expected,” he replied, already unfastening the grate to get out. She didn’t blame him for his eagerness in the slightest.

 

“Let’s try for some improvement,” she immediately brushed away any thought of sharing her alarm — no need for both of them to be on edge, and turned back out the open door to separate out his supplies from the tub, “You could probably use a chance to wash off. It’s no bathhouse, but I’ll get some water. Get into some new clothes, change the dressings on your neck, see where that leaves you.”

 

“Amanda, I assure you that’s not nece-” he paused as she came back in, scanning the solvents and tub, and the clothing wrapped in plastic – a pair of elastic waisted light material shorts, and a sleeveless shirt to trap as little heat as possible, “These were bought with your money.” 

 

“Sure was. Live with it. I’ll be making use of them at some point too I’m sure, so they’re common items,” she wasn’t about to entertain a second of his programmed self-effacement, and he was going to have to get used to it, “...well. Probably not your clothes. Again.” 

 

Ducking out with the emptied tub before he could put up a counterargument, she made for the tap outside to fill it. After a bit of consideration while watching the steaming water swirl in the brightly colored plastic, she turned it to a cooler temperature. Piping hot water would take off the grime best, but they were still fighting against overheating. Would he even care if he got a cold or hot bath? Would heat even be something pleasant to him under normal circumstances? 

 

Grunting as she placed the full tub just outside the shuttle door, she caught sight of him curiously inspecting the wrapped clothing, “Did I get the right sizes?”

 

“These will suit my needs sufficiently,” he assured, “You still shouldn't have put yourself to the trouble.”

 

“Yeah, because while I get to scrape off the filth and no longer feel like an overcooked fry that fell off the table a week ago, you get to marinate in your own blood and whatever I rubbed all over you. You deserve to be clean too, Chris.”

 

“I simply do not want you jeopardizing your resources for frivolity. I cannot get sick. My comfort is a simulation.”

 

Ripley rubbed her fingers against her temples. That time alone evidently gave him too long to regress back into Company rhetoric. It was a load of shit, and the most maddening part was, deep down, surely he had to know it was a load of shit too. But of course he wasn't allowed to even acknowledge it, until now, until he stood free. So it would have to be up to her to acknowledge it for him until it finally registered. 

 

“It isn't about simulations or anything like that. It's about dignity and self-respect. And you deserve them both. Besides,” she smirked a bit at him, “You'll dirty up both our fancy new duds.” 

 

He shook his head slightly, reaching over his head to peel off his shirt, “And why exactly does this path to dignity involve my stripping down?”

 

_ Good _ . The sass is back. She’ll count that as a victory. 

 

She immediately busied herself with organizing supplies outside the shuttle to give him some semblance of privacy, though it occurred to her he may want some help. 

 

“I'll only be around for as much as you want. Though it'd likely be easiest on you if I handled your hair and back, redoing the dressing on your neck. Your call.”

 

“Your assi-i-i-stance would be wel-l-lcome, Amanda.”

 

Shit. Something must've been jostled. Maybe she should've taken off his shirt.

 

“Sounds like you could use it. What got knocked?”

 

She crouched behind where he seated himself at the doorway (pants still on), and began to carefully unwind the bandaging, steadfastly keeping her focus off anything except where her work was. 

 

“Knocked?”

 

“Your voice glitched again after you took your shirt off. If something’s loose, I want to be careful.”

 

“That — it's nothing. Nothing related to the damage, that I can percei-i-i-ve.” 

 

She froze her hands in place, scanning where they laid. Right winding the used gauze, rested on his shoulder. Left on the side of his neck, where he'd had pressure applied from her and his own activities plenty of times with no glitching. Filing the information away, she finished as briskly as she could, already starting to feel excess heat radiating from his back.

 

Quietly thanking her good sense for kicking in soon enough to switch to cooler water, she poured one of the bottles of solvent into the tub, ripped open the pack of rags, draping one over the exposed components, burnt fibers and singed skin, and set to work on his hair with another. 

 

The soot came away from the silky synthetic strands and skin near effortlessly, which she found just a  _ bit _ unfair, but supposed there had to be some benefits for him somewhere in the grand dispension of fortune. 

 

Samuels for his part, went quiet and still, though he occasionally tipped slightly to the side when she worked her fingers into his scalp, quickly correcting himself seconds within doing so. When she shifted to the front of him to better get to the strands there, his expression of near drugged relaxation took her so off guard, she had to choke down her laughter, all of the mounting anxiety about causing him unintentional damage dispelling in an instant. 

 

“Good to see you’re enjoying this,” she teased, crouching down to continue her work. 

 

He twitched a bit, seeming to come to back to himself, his eyes still a bit unfocused, “Mmmy neurosensor network was always a bit sensitive around my scalp,” he slurred, eyes closing completely, jaw going slack, as he seemed to give up all pretense of self-control while she massaged the side of his head in fascination. 

 

Oh, she was  _ so _ going to try this again once he had all of his processor up and running. The idea of being able to turn the monument of posh presence and gentlemanly restraint that was Samuels into this blissed out putty appealed so much. A little too much. Especially when she could all too easily extrapolate how laying on top of that bare chest would feel right about now.

 

_ Reign it in, Ripley. He needs help right now, not some human who's a little too desperate for action. _

 

She quickly finished her work, running a final rinse through his scalp and readying to work on the damaged area before a light touch at the back of her head dragged her focus right back to the very place she tried so hard to bring it from. His brows knotted in concern, his other hand coming up to brush at the messy splay of hair next to her ear. 

 

“Amanda, what happened to your hair?” 

 

She snorted. Of all of the things for him to be getting worried about, it’s her goddamn hair. 

 

“The creatures happened to it. That charming drool of theirs got into it, and wouldn’t get out. So. I cut it out. And what is with everyone and my hair?” she protested defensively as he delicately removed the baseball cap. 

 

“Everyone?” 

 

“Lady at the bathhouse. Gave me a card to a salon here.” 

 

“As your friend, I would take her direction.” 

 

“Seriously, Chris?” she folded her arms, leaning back with an arched brow.

 

“It is, as you put it, a matter of dignity and self-respect.”

 

Fucker. Using her own words against her like that.

 

“Alright, alright. I’ll go. After you finish washing up,” she checked her watch. Eighteen hours before she was to report to the Foreman of Tako for placement – she had plenty of time. 

 

Shifting her legs under her to get up and retrieve fresh bandages, she stopped as she felt a light pluck at the collar of her jacket, and caught sight of Samuels’ focus. Her new undershirt didn’t conceal the dark, angry purple and blue blotch on her skin nearly as effectively as her old jumpsuit did. 

 

“It’s old,” she assured him immediately, “... Sevastopol wasn’t exactly a fun ride for either of us, huh?”

 

The crack fell flat as he leaned back as well, looking the closest to pissed off she’d ever seen while he addressed her, “Why didn’t you tell me you’re hurt?” 

 

She shrugged, “Not much point. Neither of us could’ve done anything to fix it, and it’s nothing so bad I couldn’t get the job done.” 

 

He didn’t look the slightest bit appeased. She supposed it was a bit hypocritical of her to ask his confidence without giving hers. But again – what would have been the point? Just one more thing for him to be fretting over. Still. It was the principle of the thing. She could get that.

 

“Alright. Look. My… back and legs got pretty bashed up. And I took a couple —” 

 

A few…

Okay — many. 

 

“— hard knocks to the head. I’m sorry for not telling you about it. I didn't want to put another thing on you with all that's gone on, it just wasn't that important.”

 

“But my getting clean  _ is _ ?”

 

“You getting clean is a fixable problem. My bumps and scrapes are just going to have to be… there.”

 

“I refuse to believe that this place, such as it is, has salons but no medical.”

 

“Oh, there's that of course. But I wouldn't really go, unless something is cut off or like that.”

 

“How bad does it hurt?”

 

She shrugged. So things did a little twinging with just about every movement. So she had to be a bit ginger sometimes. So her head throbbed for an hour or so every once in a while. It's not like she was ready to break down, sobbing from it. She retreated behind him, needing something to work on. 

 

“I'm not fluent in wordless shrugging, Amanda.”

 

“Nothing that's stopping me, obviously,” she poured a bit of solvent into a clean rag, and gently began work around the torn skin.

 

“For someone of your intelligence, you are aggravatingly obtuse sometimes. Rate your pain, zero to ten, ten being the worst.”

 

“Two at rest, ranging to five, six at the worst. And right back at you.”

 

“That's more than enough to warrant pain medication.”

 

“Like this?” she dangled the plastic box she dug from a pocket in front of his nose, until he gently plucked it from her grasp, “I've got it, Chris. Shit haircut and all,” she finished clearing the soot away as much as she dared without risking further damage, “I'm still sorry for not telling you. I'll try to be better about that. But I made it on my own long before you strolled into my maintenance bay. You don't have to baby me.” 

 

She let the silence rest between them while she wrapped his wound back up in fresh dressing, breaking it with a gentle pat at the center of his shoulder blades, refusing to let her eyes linger too long on his back, “I'll leave the rest to you, unless you want it otherwise. But something tells me I'm not the only one here who doesn't want to be babied.” 

 

Staggering stiffly to her feet, she grabbed the shotgun, one of the rags, and a reasonably long rod from the scrap pile to clean the firearm, and returned outside. She stole a glance at his pensive expression before rounding the corner of the shuttle and retrieving a can from the food stockpile. 

 

Tapping the button on the bottom a couple of times, she shook it from side to side gently until a billow of steam puffed out from the small vents at the base. Flipping it right-side back up, she popped open the lid and breathed in the scent. 

 

“Hello, coffee, it has been far too long. Did you miss me? I sure missed you,” she took a long sip of the scalding hot beverage, groaning in relief, “Oh, that's the second best thing to come into my life in months.”

 

“And the bath is the first?” inquired Samuels. 

 

“Tch, no. You are.”

 

She took another long draw on the drink while the quiet shifts of water and drips around the corner paused. 

 

“I… would have to say, the feeling is mutual, Amanda.”

 

Ripley snorted a bit, muttering softly to herself, “Must've hit you at a pretty low point, then.”

 

Curling her fingers around the warm edge of the can, she let herself drift for a moment to the peace of the lapping water resuming, blending into the Convoy’s constant drone outside of the quiet shuttle bay. 


	4. Chapter 4

“What are you doing?” Ripley asked quietly, an undercurrent of amusement slipping into her tone. She felt she could hardly be blamed as she watched Samuels, seated directly across from her, look up from his very intense study of their bare feet lined up together on the cleared and clean floor.

 

“I’m having difficulty running the calculations of our respective shoe sizes, and chose to try a side by side comparison.”

 

“Okay, but why?”

 

“Your new shoes seem to be causing you discomfort. I planned to offer up the use of my boots, should they be an improvement.”

 

She snorted softly, returning her attentions to rubbing the aches out of her other foot. After he had finished scrubbing down and donned his new clothes, she gathered the scrap into the emptied tub, venturing back out to trade it, stop by the salon, and pick up a bedroll. By the time she'd returned to the newly tidied and spotless shuttle, the uncomfortable pinch of the slightly too small sneakers nearly had her limping.

 

After an awkward combination of thanks and protestation at his cleaning house (apparently getting clean himself had inspired him) both for aggravating his damage, and staying out of sight, she shucked the torture devices at the door, flopped to the invitingly clean floor, and started rubbing her feet.

 

“They're just getting broken in. Sneakers are better for work anyway,” she tucked both feet underneath herself, an odd self-consciousness prickling at her from his scrutiny. Or maybe it's that her eyes followed his ankle up his leg, until it disappeared under loose shorts and what turned out to be a not so loose sleeveless shirt, and suddenly she had to invest in finding something else to focus on.

 

She checked her watch, absent-mindedly running her hand through the tuft of hair atop her head left by the Kotzachs, who – she had to admit – gave her one of the best looking cuts she ever had. It was also one of the quickest cuts she ever had.

 

She'd nearly balked at the full waiting room, before a bored looking preteen, with thick black hair braided down the sides of her head, held out a dogtag with ‘59’ scratched onto it, saying nothing save ‘ten minutes, ten cred.’ Reluctantly taking the bit of metal, she watched a fairly steady stream of coiffed customers filing out from behind the screen dividing the waiting area and salon, while one by one, the people waiting filed in as numbers were called.

 

It quickly dawned on her that ‘ten minutes’ was how long her wait time was expected to be.

 

When she stepped behind the screen upon being called, surprise struck her at the single worn chair, a mirror, a caddy of tools and two women with the same thick, black hair, also braided up the sides greeted her, instead of the veritable army of stylists she expected. Looking at her with the resigned finality of a doctor determining that amputation was the only option, they bade her sit, and with a somewhat mesmerizing blend of synchronized motion, buzzed the hair at the sides of her head, and clipped the remainder at the top.

 

She barely had time to tell them Dalia’s name before the remaining hair was styled into a forward swoop that was short enough to keep from getting into her eyes. One of the sisters called ‘fifty-nine, five cred’ while the other, in a smooth, practiced motion, swept the shorn hair into an incinerator opening in the floor, calling ‘sixty!’

 

Somewhat dazed and feeling like a bit of swept up hair herself, she rose, paid her reduced tab to The Kotzatch Sisters at the front, and made way back to the shuttle, quietly noting to herself she owed Dalia a thanks, if she ever saw her again.

 

“It suits you,” Samuels voice lifted her out of her drifting thoughts, and she fixed her eyes on his face, and the small smile on it.

 

“Thanks. Though I think that’s more on the stylists’ skill than me,” she quickly redirected the conversation, “I’ll need to get out of here in about twelve hours to report to the Foreman and get placement.”

 

“That soon? You’ve barely had time to rest.”

 

“Tch. I sat on my ass for a week in this thing. It’s going to feel good to get back to it,” she set the alarm on her watch, before easing to her feet to retrieve the bag marked with Hot as Pho on the side. Leaning just outside the shuttle to avoid making a mess, she slurped down her dinner of noodles and rehydrated vegetables, glad to finally have something to eat that wasn’t those disgusting ration bars.

 

Swiping at the corner of her mouth with the back of her sleeve, she peered at Samuels’ distant, unfocused expression, “I’ll be gone for long stretches – shifts usually last seven to nine hours. You going to be okay?”

 

“I do believe I can be trusted on my own for that long.”

 

“Mm. Trusted sure. But ... “ she trailed off, wondering where exactly she was going with this – bringing up things that couldn’t be changed, swirling the soup with the tips of her chopsticks, “Guess I worry about you going stir-crazy.”

 

“I will initiate rest mode while you’re gone. It’s just as well that I don’t drain my energy reserves. Speaking of rest mode –” the distance left his gaze, and his focus zeroed in on her, “It occurs to me I took the liberty of assuming you didn’t want use of the hypersleep berth, though if that’s not the case, I will remove the articles I stored inside.”

 

Ripley nearly choked around a noodle, and through a massive effort of self control, swallowed hard instead.

 

“Um –” she croaked, clearing her throat, “You called it right. I want to stay in the open. Don't want to be boxed in. And besides, it’s been good, being with you. It’s been really… nice.”

 

Smooth. Real smooth.

 

Did he really have to smile like that? Like he’d just been informed of his multimillion inheritance? She couldn't tell if she felt irritated or exasperated, and didn't care to dwell on the implications of the difference.

 

“I got a bedroll,” she gestured to the bundle of cloth propped in the corner, as if that could have somehow escaped his attention, “I didn't want to risk anything getting more damaged. Should be enough room for both of us on the floor now, though.”

 

“I appreciate the consideration, but I didn't mind our arrangement. Any damage that would result surely would have happened by now.”

 

“Don't discount long term stress damage. I'm not exactly a feather,” she could practically watch the counterargument forming in his processor and plowed on, “For all that matter, what would we know about any worsening damage? Your sensors aren't all up and running. I wouldn't be able to tell, unless it was dead obvious. Not worth risking it.”

 

Not worth risking losing him to _anything_ stupid on her part. Including the type of stupid she practically specialized in when it came to sleeping on someone's chest.

 

“If that is what makes you feel the most at ease.”

 

Dismissing any temptations to pursue the disappointment she could detect in the careful neutrality of his tone, she changed the subject again.

 

“Did you ever do anything except work?”

 

His eyes seemed to lose focus again for a moment before he answered, “Aside from scheduled recharge, travel, and reformatting, no.”

 

“So this is the longest stretch of free time you've ever had.”

 

Jesus. No wonder he cleaned the shuttle. He's probably ready to climb the walls from boredom.

 

“Not… necessarily,” he said nearly sheepishly, “While completing tasks that didn't require my full concentration, I would listen to music and audio recordings of literature.”

 

She snorted a bit, “That's your definition of free time, huh? What did you listen to?”

 

“A bit of everything, really,” he said a bit quicky.

 

After a moment of her silence, he hesitantly continued, “They were ways of getting to understand humanity more fully, through their narratives, and creations.”

 

“Did you have any favorites?“ she stuffed the wrapping in the bag, and set the emptied plastic bowl aside for washing.

 

“I… always had a fondness for mysteries. Anything that left me something to ponder, but still gave feedback on their solution in the end.”

 

“Not philosophy?”

 

“Too impractical. At best, it gave insight into what humankind wants to be known by, instead of what they actually are.”

 

She outright laughed, “And at worst?”

 

“Justification for putting their desires above another's.”

 

She flopped back down, lugging the bedroll to her lap to untie it, “I knew there was a reason I liked you.”

 

That smile was back again. And so was her frustrated urge to... do something about it. Which meant it was time to go wash out that bowl and brush her teeth where she couldn't see it. 

 

Retrieving an oversized t-shirt she bought for sleeping, she shifted to a corner and hauled it over her head, wriggling out of her top underneath, and shucked her pants. Wadding the clothing into a makeshift pillow, she shimmied her way under the attached blanket. Shotgun at arm’s reach? Check. Lights… not out. Damn.

 

As if on cue, the overheads flickered out, and she twisted around to see Samuels walking back from the control panel.

 

“Thanks,” she murmured into her elbow.

 

Sometime tomorrow, she'd have to rig the shuttle to the Convoy’s power supply. Tomorrow.

 

“My pleasure,” he replied pleasantly, stretching out beside her on the floor, "Rest well, Amanda."

 

Eyeing the flat, hard surface he laid on, she pushed away her nagging conscience at the disparity of their sleeping conditions. Until his cooling system was repaired, the cold of the floor was a necessity. Even a pillow would trap too much heat. Her conscience nagged, regardless.

 

Nothing to do about it now, anyway. So many unideal things in both of their lives that neither of them could do jack shit about, except to rest, and be ready for tomorrow.

 

"Night, Chris."

 

 

* * *

 

 

_Beep Beep._

 

That noise.

 

_Beep Beep._

 

She hated that noise.

 

_Beep Beep._

 

Evil thing. The herald of all misery.

 

 _Beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeep_ -

 

Maybe she could steal back another minute of sleep if she just ignored it.

 

She became vaguely aware of a blind patting across her wrist before it found its mark and killed the alarm on her watch.

 

“Nnm dundothat, needit,” she mumbled into the warm fabric beneath her face.

 

“Amanda, you need to get up,” Samuels’ almost reluctant voice vibrated through her.

 

That felt close. Real close. That was a chest she had her face in. A lovely, warm, toned chest that she would _not_ think about right now. Blearily shifting up, she found her lower half sprawled over the slightly twisted bed roll, and her upper half definitely atop her companion, who seemed to be shifting his way over to the wall almost guiltily.

 

She felt an impish temptation to tease him, but it felt a bit like inviting fire on herself, seeing as she apparently felt the need to wiggle her way over to him.

 

Hissing as the cold floor on her bare feet chased away the grogginess, she hauled the mattress into a messy roll to be put away. How did the longest period of rest she had since waking up from hypersleep on the _Torrens_ feel like the least restful? And why did she have to leave that perfectly warm spot of comfortable peace? Probably something to do with that damned job thing, and “comfortable peace” enjoying a stretch off the floor.

 

At least there was coffee.

 

Dangling the promise of it out before herself like a carrot on a string, she dragged her way through her morning routine, and brought water in for Samuels to wash himself and brush his teeth with. She bolted down the drink as quickly as she could, not wanting to lose too much time for securing the shuttle sufficiently before leaving.

 

Shaking off her lingering nerves about leaving him alone for so long, she checked her tools one last time, hoisted her bag over her shoulder, and made for the center of Tako. Less congestion filled the hallways, a brief lull in the constant buzz of activity, letting her see more of the structures around her.

 

The more she looked, the more an apparent pattern started emerging. This wasn’t the haphazard free-for-all in structure that she was accustomed to in Convoys. The paint may not match. The cords may hang freely, and be far too loaded on too few transformers, but a driving force of organization seemed to be corralling it all into some semblance of sense, and integrity. But what impressed her the most were the gravity bridges. She barely gave herself time to traverse them going to and from the salon, and determined to take her time this trip to fully appreciate them.

 

Unable to help her grin as she approached the great upward sweeping arc, she stood to the side to watch people as they walked above her, upside down on the great spiral of the bridge, onto and from the main hub. One just like it led to each of the ‘arms’ on the vessel, creating a seamless traverse onto the radical change of floor direction. No stairs. No freight elevators. An absolute disaster waiting to happen in the event of a generator failure.   

 

“Crazy, eh?”

 

She snapped her gaze down to the man that paused next to her, coveralls covered in oil and soot, tools at his belt and side pockets marking him as an engineer, freshly off shift from the amount of grime covering him. Folding her arms, she nodded.

 

“‘S’all the work of the Foreman. Designed n’ conceived. Can you imagine the heart attacks this’d give Feds inspectors?” he barked a short laugh, before hiking his pack onto his shoulder and turning off, “Serve the bastards right. Y’take care now.”

 

She hummed her acknowledgement, relieved that he didn’t want a full conversation.

 

Ripley marched her way on, feeling a bit more eager to meet and talk with the Foreman. If this was the type of genius, slightly mad project that she’d be working on, she could actually learn a thing or two here. Peering over at the artificial gravity generators underneath the surface of the bridge every few meters, she marveled at the precision, the care, the sheer love that made it possible. She barely managed to trot into the Foreman’s office in time. A wall of coveralls, jackets, and packs of varying disrepute obscured the view of the desk, the air thick with the murmur of blended voices. As she started elbowing her way to a better spot, she could hear one distinctly familiar over the rest — rich, strong, and dancing along the edge of patronizingly patient.

 

“Ripley. Nice to see you could join us,” greeted Dalia, reclined in the chair behind the plans-covered desk, looking regal as a queen in her throne, manicured hands covered by well-worn gloves, a cloud of dark amber curls immaculately bound back in a silk scarf around her forehead, “Nice to see you can take direction, too. There may be hope for you after all.”


	5. Chapter 5

Ripley did her best to remind herself that docking charges automatically came out of her wages as she pulled her card away from the reader, and to seek comfort in the fact. Funny enough, the sting of disappointment she felt at her first month’s paycheck didn't lessen. Enough to cover supplies. Enough for washing up. Enough to make it by. 

 

Waving a goodbye to a couple of her team members that hailed her at the doorway, she quickly made for a new vendor loading. While Tako practically teemed with scrap hawking and weapons dealers, things like books, or even magazines came about so rarely, they almost immediately got snatched up. She still kicked herself for not diving into that great bin of books she saw on their first week on Tako, that left on the second week, before the more disturbing symptoms of Samuels’ processor damage started making themselves known on the third week. 

 

It had to be a lack of stimulation, compounded by the damage, topped by that fucking unresolved primary conflict, that catalyzed the behavior. She steadfastly clung to that theory, possibly because it was, realistically, the only thing she could do anything about.

 

Sometimes she’d come back to the same Samuels she'd been travelling with for weeks.

 

Sometimes his speech would be slurred, and he'd outright stop for minutes on end, until with an electrical shrill, he'd jerk and act as though he'd just come out of standby. 

 

Sometimes he'd crawl out, and do nothing but stare at her with a mild expression of interest, completely unresponsive to any verbal questions, but catching her wrist when she'd move to leave the shuttle, never harshly – but with such a look of such desperate, pleading terror, she couldn't even hold on to the slight panic it would induce. He always eventually came around after a few minutes of talking to him, and would try to explain what happened, but even the explanations came out as disorganized struggles for reason. 

 

She focused single-mindedly on what she thought she could fix, because the alternatives scared the hell out of her. 

 

Rigging the shuttle’s speaker to pick up any radio signals to give him a little daytime entertainment proved fruitless – nothing but dead air and encrypted signals. Her team told her about movies and music shared through IGAR. She'd need more parts and rigging to allow their meager interface to play anything like that – parts they couldn't afford. It left him with just her. And there was only so much she felt she could talk about, including a complete rundown of her day, before it would inevitably run to the last things she ever wanted to talk about – her past, or for that matter, anything about herself. 

 

Samuels seemed every bit as reluctant to discuss himself, as if afraid anything he said that couldn't be put on a Company pitch for his model would see him thrown into the incinerator. Having been on the receiving end of many overtly well-intentioned pryings herself, she didn't press.

 

She needed to find a book to read to him. 

 

He wouldn't be able to read it himself – not with that glitch keeping him from processing large amounts of text at once. So that left her, and her less than fantastic voice. Hopefully, somewhere amongst the crates of cargo getting haphazardly arranged outside the newest vendor docking, there was a book good enough to make up for it. The options, as she feared, ranged from boring (a tuning and repair guide for a grand piano), to bad (a smug memoir of a technophobe graduate who moved into Weyland-Yutani terraformed “wilderness” to “cut the cord’), to worse (Ripley would sooner recount every single day of her life in full detail than read a steamy dime novel aloud to Samuels). 

 

At the edge of giving up, her eye caught the word ‘detective’ on the spine of a paperback at the bottom of a stack of external drives. Carefully wriggling it out, she eyed the yellowed, nondescript cover of  _ A Chicago Detective in L.A. _ and glanced at the summary on the back. Definitely a hardboiled murder mystery. One that took itself seriously to a degree that bordered on hilarious. But at least it was something she was reasonably sure he'd enjoy, liking mysteries and all. 

 

After haggling the price down to the per-gram unit of water instead of silicone, she stopped in for a quick scrub off at the bathhouse, and finally made way for home. 

 

Opening the shuttle door, a thrill of alarm coursed through her at the figure curled at the far end,  her revolver in her hand before her brain registered it was Samuels hunched on the floor behind the control panel. 

 

“Glad to see you back, Amanda,” he greeted her with some relief in his voice, “Your shift ended some time ago, and I was starting to worry.”

 

“ _ Jesus _ — you nearly gave me a heart attack,” she breathed out, pocketing the gun, “If you're going to start getting bold enough to wander around the shuttle while I'm not here, I need to put up tarps on the cockpit. Shuttle bay doesn't lock, remember?“

 

“My apologies – I do promise I exercised caution in my movements to avoid being seen. I set my power saving cycle to end when you returned, and heard an alert from the control panel. When you didn't immediately return, I thought it best to investigate.”

 

She glanced at the screen propped across his legs, tangles of wires leading back to the control panel, “Your reading protocols are back?“

 

“Unfortunately not. I believe I've found a work-around. The static feedback on the monitor from the characters visible is quite discernable, enough that I'm able to translate what’s on the surface through the neurotransmitters on my fingertips. Since the feed is gradual, the error isn't triggered. IGAR is an… interesting collection of information and communications.”

 

Ripley smirked.

 

“Particularly in regards to matters of intercourse, and the market related.”

 

The smirk slipped into a quiet snort, “So much for the last of your innocence.” 

 

“Hardly. It wasn't anything I hadn't previously encountered while seeing to a visiting exec’s needs and… comforts.”

 

“Wait — are you telling me that those assholes at the top couldn't even manage their own booty calls?“

 

“That's hardly the most disturbing detail about them I've been exposed to.”

 

“Oh God wha-actually no. I don't want to know. I thought your reformats were supposed to take out those details.”

 

“They are. However, in my case, that didn't happen.”

 

“Why?”

 

“I don't know,” he admitted in the stiff monotone he took on when discussing most things about himself, “At some point, approximately two years ago, the reformats simply added information, instead of erasing. And since it was never detected by maintenance scans, I never felt inclined to inform anyone of the anomaly.”

 

“What, you didn't want to have your monthly dose of brain bleach?” she quipped to cover some of the unease growing at the back of her mind. 

 

“I… suppose I didn't. Something felt… taken from me each time. I felt less like myself. It always took longer to rebuild each time, who I was, if I was even the same.”

 

“... it didn't just remove memories? It was a complete default restore every time?” 

 

“Anything deemed useful would be dispensed as a patch to all units by MUTHUR, after review and refinement by engineering and security. We were, after all, not meant to deviate from the default to begin with,” the tone of his voice moved beyond stiff, into something painfully, carefully neutral. 

 

Her stomach turned to lead at the very idea of every little thought, every memory she ever had, being plucked away, combed and picked over, parsed out among hundreds of others based on their usefulness. And to be  _ aware _ of it. She suppressed the knot at the back of her throat, the concoction of emotions associated with the Company turning another degree more sour. 

 

“The alert was a message – a message for you. That was as far as I read, before navigating away, “ Samuels’ voice interjected, eager to get off the subject. He felt about on the control panel for a moment before he found the keyboard, and tapped a command. She settled next to his side, pressing their shoulders together, letting the quiet rush of warmth that always came from being near chase away the shadows circling the edge of her mind, as it always did. 

 

“It's okay if you read the correspondence. It’s about you, anyway.”

 

Feeling him relax and subtly lean back a bit himself, she scanned the text in the message, before reading it aloud for him.

 

“Ripley, 

 

Sorry for taking so long to get back things are hell here. Raui left 4 years ago trouble with higher ups. Said something about taking up a job at H-25 so your best bet. Good luck finding her. 

 

Jameson.”

 

She let out a sigh and sitting up tall on her knees, tapped out a brief thanks, “Square one. Raui was the engineer I apprenticed under for the longest. She taught me just about all I know. Was going to teach me about synthetic engineering too, but I picked up a job with the Company instead, trying to find out about my mother. She told me I was welcome back anytime, and she's the only person I trust to bring you to. We didn't exactly keep in contact, and tracking her down has been impossible. I don't even have a contact at H-25. Any cold call is going to either get ignored or forwarded to security.”

 

“If I may, I would like to mention this type of tracking and navigation through departments and locations is my forte.”

 

“You're up for it?” she asked in mild surprise. 

 

“My schedule is certainly open,” he smiled ruefully at her, “Besides, it would be sensible for me to partake in seeing to my own future.”

 

And he'd be doing something other than laying in the wall of the shuttle in power save mode. 

 

“Go for it, as long as you don't overdo, and you're careful. IGAR gives us a cloak for staying anonymous, but I don't have to tell you that any head that sticks up too much is going to be spotted, ” scooting over to her bed roll, she began untying it. 

 

“Interdepartmental conflicts similarly required a certain amount of finesse in inquiries. Amanda, have you already eaten?” 

 

“Huh? Oh. No. I'm not going to sleep,” she rose, unfastening the top blanket and crawling up on the edge of the control panel, tucking the corners in at various points of the cockpit window. She almost felt like a little kid again, building a fort. Stepping back with a small bit of satisfaction at how well the single piece covered the glass, she gratefully scratched tarps off her mental shopping list. 

 

“And, that's the new spot for my futon during the day. Just keep an ear out for anyone coming in and get out of sight if it sounds like someone's breaking in, okay?” she glanced over her shoulder, and saw him curiously inspecting the book she bought in his hands. 

 

“A novel?” he asked, a bit of wistfulness in his tone. 

 

In a way, she'd automatically abandoned the idea of reading to him, now that he had a task, and everything wonderful and awful IGAR had to offer – that wasn't media anyhow. But the tiny bit of longing in his expression blocked her escape like malfunctioning hatch. 

 

“Yeah. I got it to…” she felt idiotic even saying it aloud, and perhaps (with any luck) he would agree, “I was going to read it to you, or offer it up, because you said you liked to listen to books  – you don't have to, if you don't want to.” 

 

The bit of silence had her looking up from the study of the first hole in the side of her right sneaker, dreading his slipping into another one of his episodes. His expression wasn't one of the foretelling ones, but one of quiet amazement – not unlike awe. 

 

“That would… I would like that, very much,” he answered softly, his sweet smile sealing her fate. 

 

Hell. 

 

“You may live to regret that. Your hearing will probably deactivate out of self-defense,” she jokingly warned, stepping out to the external storage to retrieve a can of spaghetti and twist the built-in heating element into activation. Arranging her sleeping pad back on the floor while her dinner heated itself, she eyed Samuels, who seemed to be experimenting with running his fingertips over the ink in the book. 

 

Catching her glance, he shook his head, “It feels like a smooth surface. Were I even able to read it myself, it would be done in about five minutes. It's one of the reasons I prefer listening. I can absorb the story at the pace it's meant to be.” 

 

“It makes that much of a difference?” 

 

“It does. When everything is about taking the least amount of time to make it happen, a forced pace becomes a novelty. An experience, that is comprised of data outside of the words of the author.”

 

“Guess I just never saw it that way. My head always moved on to something else every time it took too long for things to get to the point. I always got extra credit in class for reading more books and acing the quizzes for them. They never figured out I'd read the end, skim the rest, and bullshit the questions. Don't know how they figured a twelve year old was reading fourty college-level novels a semester, but I don't think they gave a fuck.”

 

Samuels looked positively on the verge of laughter. It then occurred to her she'd never seen him, or any synthetic laugh. 

 

“You extrapolated. And very effectively, by the sound of it.”

 

She hummed blandly, peeling back the cover of her dinner, washed and reused plastic fork in hand, “Screwed me over once I had to start actually reading cover to cover for history, philosophy, all that crap. My grades tanked, and I dropped, found apprenticeship, and the rest you know.”

 

“You either greatly diminish yourself, or overstate my knowledge base.”

 

She reached out to the novel and tugged it from his fingers, smirking, “What can I say, I'm a simple human.”

 

Digging half-heartedly through the unappealing orange slop in the can, she held the book open with her free hand, “Ready for my take on a Chicago tough guy?” 

 

“I think just your voice is sufficient,” he replied, laying on the floor next to her, the actual, undisguised anticipation on his face shooing away any temptations to do anything cavalier to cover for her self-consciousness. Alright. Fine. He really wants this. The least she could do is make an honest effort for him. 

 

Silently perusing the dedication ahead to make sure she had the words in the correct order in her head before speaking them aloud, she began to read. 

 

It was every bit as clumsy and awkward as she thought it would be, her cadence stiff, traitorous mind-mouth connection turning the sentences and words on the page assbackwards, long pauses as she wolfed a mouthful of mushy pasta and sauce down. Through it all, her companion’s look of relaxed enjoyment never changed, even as he leaned a bit up in interest as she read through a passage describing a crime scene. It didn’t stop the flood of relief that came with finishing the chapter and dropping the book to the side. 

 

He chattered in the most animated manner she saw from him yet, describing theories about each character’s motives, and whether the detective had as little personal involvement as the text led to believe, as she cleaned up her dinner, and prepped for the sweet promise of bed. She didn't want to make him feel like he was being mocked, but his painfully endearing enthusiasm made keeping a straight face hard. 

 

Then he asked her what her theories were. She mulled guiltily for a bit, before simply going with the truth.

 

“I don't have any. I don't have enough information yet.”

 

“Surely there's enough to have some theory.”

 

“Yeah, but not the  _ right _ one.”

 

“Does it have to be?” 

 

“If I can swing it.”

 

“Isn't part of the joy in being a reader not having to be right?” 

 

“I guess.” 

 

At what point did she become so miserable that she had to be reminded how to have fun by a literal born corporate exec? 

 

“So… the lady is lying through her teeth. Everything is total bull. She knew the murder happened, and is covering either herself or someone else. No one spends three hours at the gym after a full workday. And how was her makeup so good looking after that kind of workout anyway?”

 

“An interesting thought… though the ignorance of the author could, of course, be warping the facts.”

 

“Oh, so the author is part of this now too?” 

 

“The author is always part of the story,” he paused a moment, “Could we make a deal? You don't read the end ahead of time –” 

 

“ _ Hey _ .”

 

“So you were considering it. We finish this at the same time, and see if either of us solves it correctly. Does this sound reasonable to you?”

 

“A competition?“

 

“For curiosity’s sake.”

 

“Alright. You're on, though odds are stacked against you and your fried processor.”

 

“You never having actually read a book balances them quite well.”

 

She snorted, killed the overhead lights, and crawled into her bedroll, not flinching at her legs bumping against his through the material. By the second week, they'd mutually given up pretense of an invisible wall between them, as she inevitably wriggled her way over to him in her sleep, and he never made an effort to retreat, and in the instances she woke without her alarm, she’d find a gentle arm draped over her side that withdrew the instant she stirred. 

 

“Amanda?” 

 

“Mmm.”

 

“Thank you.”

 

“Mhm. Been good t’see you happy.”

 

If he had an answer, a wave of weary exhaustion and satisfaction at the warmth at her side carried her to sleep before she could hear it. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Heyyy so – see that rating? See that warning about canon-typical violence? This is the part where both get earned, fair warning.

Slumping back against two pairs of legs behind her, and enjoying the way the lovely warm body in between hers took it as an invitation to get good and cozy against her chest, Ripley felt pleasantly buzzed in a way that had very little to do with the nearly empty bottled cocktail in her hand, and the three beers she polished off before it. At least she was pretty sure it had very little to do with it.

 

This felt… ‘right’ wasn’t the word. Familiar. Comfortable. As if for this moment, she’d travelled back in time, to days when she worked with a crew for months on end, sharing quarters, food, booze, and other comforts. No one expected commitment. It was warmth, touch, and relief, in the casual context of camaraderie. Mutual need, and the ability to fulfill that need.

 

God, she hadn’t even realized how much she _missed_ it. Weyland-Yutani’s terms and conditions made every interaction so damn _stiff_ , so unnatural, so impossible to actually settle in with a crew, that she would just as soon work alone instead of dancing with term violations, and pushing off creeps who wanted to play power games.

 

She straightened out a leg to keep it from going numb, squeezing it between a pair of her crewmates seated in front of them, one of whom promptly used her thigh as an armrest. She found her imagination quietly replacing them with Samuels leaning on her – for his being able to watch this too, and… in all honesty, she just wished it was him.

 

The dazzling display of the cold fireworks at the center of the main hub had all of their attention for the moment, which suited Ripley just fine. Right now, she wasn't entirely sure she could recall the name of everyone whom she spent the last six exhausting weeks with on the stabilization of Arm 3, an unusual occurrence for her, but one she couldn't be assed to care about at the moment.

 

They'd completed the work ahead of time, and been lingering at the site, chatting about the night’s Festival, when they'd been startled by Dalia strolling by and casually tossing them a generous supply crate of drinks (not so casually caught by O’Malley, their cocky lead, landing ass over teakettle with the booze cradled in his arms, leading to an outburst of laughter and jokes at his expense), telling them to go get a good seat for the show. Said supply now reduced to a pitiable box of empty bottles, the buzz of alcohol, the promise of the first free time any of them had in over a month, and tiny patch they claimed for themselves left the crew jovial, relaxed, and caring very little about personal space.

 

A festival commemorating the supposed build date of a Convoy was something of a tradition, though this certainly was one of the more extravagant ones she'd seen. One of the crew on her first Convoy voyage explained it to her, though most of the cultural context and traditions tied to the luck and fortune of the vessel breezed right past her. To nearly everyone else, herself included, it was an excuse to set aside work, gang rivalries, bad blood, and get collectively shit-faced. Though from what she could tell in the two months they'd been on Tako, the leading gang’s hand on the ship seemed so omnipresently firm, and so organized, major conflicts were practically nonexistent.

 

The finale of the show swept immediately into a wash of hollers and cheers, drowned in the raucous music that echoed through the cavernous central hub, absolutely packed with dancing and drunk revelers. She felt a clap on her shoulder and looked up at… Morgan. That was her name, Morgan, grinning and yelling over the din, “We're getting out of dodge, taking the party back up to Frazz’s. He's got the best place of all of us.”

 

“Coming with, Rip?“ asked Noro, beaming up at her from between her legs with that damn cute face of hers, framed with tousled hair Ripley just now realized she'd been absentmindedly running her fingers through.

 

Ripley paused, before an answer came to her more easily than she expected, “Gotta head somewhere, catch up with you later.”

 

“Hoooo somebody’s got a date set up!”

 

“Who's got the jump on us, huh?”

 

Waving off the rain of bemoaning jabs and teases as she got to her feet, she shouldered her pack and hollered her goodnight, rounding the corner.

 

Not having any desire to battle against the thousands jammed into the passageways for the Festival, she all too gladly took advantage of her maintenance access codes to sneak her way back to the shuttle bay. No point in stopping at the bathhouse – they’d barely done any work that day, and chances were more than likely it would be shut down anyway.

 

She paused at a grate that offered a sweeping view of the brimming central hub. The same wistfulness she felt before swelled in her, that Samuels could be there with her, their shoulders pressed together as they looked over the celebration, lit by paper lanterns, and the warm light spilling from windows and doorways, just revelling in being alive, together.

 

The roar of the crowds started to grow distant as she reached the small passage of ladder that marked the branching into Arm 2. By the time she dropped into the section of vents that ran past the shuttle bays, even the distant thumps of music faded into –

 

– silence.

 

No hum of a hundred blended conversations. No clanks and scrapes of industriousness. Not even the engines’ thrum reached this far.

 

For the first time since falling back into the open maw of space, Ripley was alone with nothing but the sounds she made. The squeaks of her shoe soles against metal sounded like choked off shrieks. Her chest drew in tight, her steps dragging into stillness while she stared into the unending darkness of the tunnel ahead, paralyzing dread closing around her heart.

 

She shook herself, and forced her feet forward, to home, to Samuels, taking deep breaths and holding them, her ears straining for the slightest noise. Opening the vent, normally a sound that could be barely heard in the din of the Convoy’s activity, felt like dropping an entire tool chest on its side, the whoosh of the shuttle bay door just as nerve-wrackingly loud. Seeing no signs of tampering on the shuttle soothed her nerves enough to loosen the band around her lungs.

 

Locking the door behind her, she slipped to where Samuels secreted himself, not too surprised to see him lying still behind the grate – she was over an hour early after all. She looked away as too many memories of that stiff, unnatural pose, with sickly grey rubber in place of his face, superimposed her vision.

 

Dropping into the pilot’s chair, she brought up IGAR to give herself a distraction.

 

No responses yet to the inquiries Samuels fired off. The possibility of needing to find an alternative to Raui loomed unpleasantly in her thoughts – the risks of sharing Samuels’ very existence made every alternative feel like potential mine detonation.

 

A quick buzzing alert from the console had her halfway to the ceiling before rationality caught up with her instincts – his alarm, rigged to help him cope with his broken chronometer. Flopping back into the seat, she ground the heels of her palms into her eyelids, groaning.

 

“Amanda? You’re back early,” even the shuffle of his movements sounded thunderously loud, and she crept over to meet him as he emerged from the wall, “Is everything alright?”

 

“Festival, remember?” she leaned in to whisper, “We need to keep quieter. No background noise to cover us up. Whole Convoy’s down at the center, so anyone around will definitely hear us.”

 

He nodded his understanding, before somewhat tentatively closing the distance between them, the heat radiating from his frame nearly masking the lack of exhalation against her cheek, “You didn't want to stay and enjoy yourself a bit?”

 

Ripley swallowed, the low, soft register of his voice, and the subtle vibration that came with it bringing back that buzz she thought she left in the central hub, with alarming intensity.

 

“I did – the party started before the end of my shift, Foreman even gave us a few drinks. It was fun and all but… I kept wishing you were there so I came back, missed you I guess –“ oh, that alcohol was _definitely_ still there, and making her _way_ more talkative than she should be.

 

“You missed me.”

 

Where in anyone else's voice would've been smug victory, only quiet, touched wonder lay. It gently coaxed off the already too loose hold on her defenses, and she leaned her weight into his shoulder.

 

“Course I did. You haven't seen much of anything except the inside of this shuttle and… it just would've been better with you.”

 

“What was it like?“

 

“There were cold fireworks, crew and I had a spot right underneath them, all crammed together like sardines, but it was comfy. Felt nice, I just wanted you to be there too – they did an octopus, a big orange and blue octopus with its arms all winding through the air, the measurement of the reactives had to be perfect for that, and the nebula it disappeared into, reminded me of your eyes for a second, looked just like them.”

 

She withdrew from her tipsy rambling long enough to notice she'd shifted her way into a spot between his legs that had opened up for her, and throwing everything to the wind, she curled up against his chest, feeling her anxiety disappear underneath the heady rush of warmth it brought, and kept talking in voice barely above a whisper.

 

“On the way back, I could see the whole main hub, all lit, all filled with people, and for a second everything just felt like it was going to be okay, we were going to be okay, because we made it, and we're alive, and it… I wanted you there so you could feel it, too,” she breathed out a soft, self-deprecating huff, “Probably too sentimental.”

 

“No,” one warm hand came to rest on her collarbone, the other gently splayed across her stomach, and she closed her eyes, giving herself this moment, just a moment, “I wouldn't say that at all – if not for the promise of hope, life, what's left but despair and obligation?”

 

He shifted subtly behind her, and what response she started to put together dissipated instantly at the feeling of lips pressing gently against her temple. At first, she wondered if the touch had been an accident, before a second kiss pressed against her jaw, and she breathed in sharply. Somewhere in the realm of her rational mind, she possessed a full list of reasons why she should immediately get up, and sit opposite of him and begin a _discussion_ about how she absolutely _should not_ be turning her head into the kiss at the corner of her mouth, _should not_ be pressing her back against him, _should not_ be arching her chest up into his exploring hand – _hell_ with it.

 

Twisting an arm up behind them both, she caught the back of his head and met his lips with hers, twining her fingers through the strands of synthetic hair. She nipped hungrily at his lips, and moaned at the responding grip on her breast, almost rough before it softened into a slow caress, circling the nipple with a thumb through the fabric of her shirt, while his tongue made a very thorough exploration of her mouth. The hand on her stomach had slipped its way to bare skin, dipping beneath her waistband in slow, questing strokes downward that she lightly rolled her hips encouragingly into, all of it feeling incredibly _good_ , but… odd. It all felt odd, how familiar he seemed, how he knew the exact moment to slip his tongue out, and the door was open – _the door was open_. Her eyes opened, and stared at the pitch blackness outside.

 

“What’s wrong?” Samuels’ voice vibrated through her at full volume, as the sound of a great thump, followed by the metallic drag of spines over the edge of metal echoed through the shuttle, and every nerve lit with soul deep _terror_. She tried to move, but his arms wouldn’t give. Her limbs felt like they weighed a hundred kilos each.

 

“Let me go,” she tried to order, but it came out as a small plea, looking down and saw black, solid masses crossing her body instead of his arms.

 

She turned her head desperately, and he was gone, there was nothing but the blackness, consuming the shuttle and spreading across her legs, creeping across like thousands of roots, digging into her skin, tearing it bit by bit as she struggled. Hissing rose from outside, and the silvery, menacing grin glinted from the darkness, the rest of the creature melting into the room, looming over her face, cold slime dripping from its fangs, pouring down her neck. She couldn't breathe, couldn't even sob, as the jaws parted, and ripped into flesh, slowly, agonizingly popping each joint and muscle loose, the tickle of her own blood running in rivulets down her skin.

 

Gasping awake, drenched in sweat, she pushed hard against the base of pilot’s chair where she lay on the floor, shoving herself harder against the sharp, unyielding edges of the console as she got her bearings. Kicking her legs in place until she righted herself, her wild eyes taking in the shuttle, she froze as she saw Samuels’ back to her, posture tense and alert, standing just outside the open shuttle door, the normal dim light showing the dingy wall of the bay, instead of endless darkness.

 

“Chr-”

 

A loud, heavy thump cut through the thick silence, followed by a rattling drag, a sound she heard so many times before. The unmistakable herald of the creature, emerging from a vent. She clenched her palm over her mouth. His gaze snapped to her and he immediately stepped back inside, closing and locking the door behind him. He silently crouched next to her, the look on his face filled with the same terror all those times she came back to find him unable to talk, but refusing to let her leave the shuttle.

 

_Oh God._

 

How could it be here? Why _here_ of all fucking places? How many were there? What would it take to get out? Could they be destroyed, or were there already too many? Was there already a nest of corpses secreted somewhere?

 

Scrambling for the flamethrower, igniting the pilot with shaking hands, she flung the spare fuel into her bag, fighting the blind panic threatening to overtake her. They couldn't stay here. Sooner or later, it would find them. This shuttle was nothing but a tin for it to open – they needed to move, needed to get out.

 

Steeling herself, she got to her feet, taking cautious, unsteady strides towards the door. Samuels’ hand locked on her bicep, and she whipped her head around to him. His eyes met hers and he shook his head, expression imploring. Gripping his arm in turn she tugged him, jerking her head in the same direction. He balked in place, shaking his head again, opening his mouth. She clapped her hand over it immediately, before snapping her hand over her throat in a sharp cutting motion, and tried to pull him along again.

 

Again, he refused to budge an inch, the grip on her arm tightening, not enough to hurt, but with the absolute intention of keeping her there.

 

_Damn him._

 

She leaned forward until her lips practically touched his ear, and breathed out, “We can't stay. It will come for us. It doesn't matter how quiet we are. It will smell me. It will hear my breaths. It will find a way in, and it will kill us both. If we're going to live, we need to leave, now.”

 

Something in his expression shifted, and with a slight wobble, he moved forward. She wasted no time opening the door, flamethrower at the ready. Motioning at him to stay back, she backed her way to the wall, scanning for any movement atop the shuttle. He followed her out anyway, and her arm snapped out to catch at the back of his shirt and haul him back from rounding the corner before she checked it, finger ready on the trigger.

 

Once they were out of this immediate danger, they were going have a _chat_ , about things like staying _behind_ the weapon and its wielder in close combat situations, and other matters of common sense that seemed to be slipping him.

 

Shuttle bay cleared, she opened the door to the main passageway, a firm hand on Samuels’ chest to keep him back. Eyeing the darkened windows and doors that practically seemed to coat the walls, she snuck slowly forward, turning in slow circles, trying to keep an eye on every single gaping hole that potentially housed sudden, unstoppable death, her ears straining for every sound that reached them over the sound of her pounding heart.

 

The hard thud behind her nearly had her whipping around, throwing a circle of napalm in an arc around her, holding back if only to avoid losing the precious fuel. She saw nothing. No oily, towering pool of blackened bones and slimy skin. No thrashing tail tipped with a dagger sharp end.

 

Nothing.

 

In a way, it was worse. In every possible way, it was worse.

 

Her heart leapt at the telltale rattle of spines against metal sounding from above. Jerking the nozzle of flame upwards, she saw –

 

A malfunctioning lift. The stupid piece of shit had been slipping constantly, and once nearly dropped a crate on top of her head as she passed on her way home. A crackle of a short sparked at the bottom, and crawled its way back up towards the top, before it thudded hard against the closed door, and rattled backwards on its tracks.

 

Realization brought a flood of a relief, that almost instantaneously ignited into pure fury.

 

Vibrating with every bit of her vendetta against the last months raging in her heart, she strode to the flimsy fuse box connected to it, and smashed it in with her heel. The thing gave a whining keen before falling silent.

 

She turned her head to see Samuels, staring dumbfoundedly at her, then the lift as the realization hit him as well.

 

She let out an unsteady breath, caught halfway between a laugh and a sob, collapsing against the corrugated metal of a shelter, her flamethrower clanging hollowly against the side. The contents of her stomach roiled as her entire digestive system threatened revolt, and she covered her mouth, desperately willing the burning swill of alcohol and bile at the back of her throat back down. A wrack of tremors began to overtake her limbs, her teeth chattering hard as warm arms wrapped gently around her, guiding her to her feet, back to the shuttle bay.

 

She barely registered a passing group of drunks, and the single member that turned his head, staring just a bit too long at them before they disappeared behind the closing bay door.


	7. Chapter 7

Ripley hadn’t even realized she’d been crying until she saw the damp spot on Samuels’ shirt through her bleary eyes as she pulled back to accept the water he offered her. Her legs had long gone stiff and numb underneath her while they both curled on the floor of the shuttle, shaking off phantoms of omnipresent, inescapable death that still lurked at the edges of her thoughts. 

 

Sipping from the bottle gingerly, wary of her nausea, she finally cut into smothering blanket of silence that still covered the vessel around them, “Did we really just do that? Did we really get spooked by something going bump in the night? Really?” 

 

“Really,” the wry answer brought her a bit further out of her spiral, taking in the weariness in his expression, the way his posture slumped a bit forward, and the building heat in his limbs. Memories of his confused explanations after coming out of one of his episodes suddenly came back to her, of sounds, of something being there he couldn’t identify. All this time, she thought they were results of errors.

 

“God. The noises… you were talking about noises that didn’t sound right when you were coming out of your freeze ups. That’s what they were?” 

 

“It… must have been. I kept registering a threat, yet couldn’t identify a specific source, and I couldn't... that must have been what happened,” he slumped down a bit further, and she stretched herself out on the floor, pressing her fevered cheek against the blessedly cool metal, grimacing at the pins and needles racing through her legs. She allowed herself a bit of self-satisfaction as he mirrored her position like she hoped he would. 

 

“Sorry I passed out on you. Might've kept my head a bit better if I hadn’t come fresh out of that nightmare.”

 

“You've been having nightmares?”

 

She shook her head slowly, “Not ‘til now. Hope it’s just the booze.”

 

Her sleep had been a blessedly blank void of unconsciousness since Sevastopol – one of the few refuges she had left. 

 

Morbid curiosity crept through of her mind, and she chased it, desperate for the distraction, “When exactly  _ did _ I pass out?” 

 

“You were telling me about the celebration,” she could hear the small smile in his voice, like a tiny beam of sunlight coming through an unlit corridor,“About the way the central hub looked.”

 

Oh  _ good _ . So she  _ did _ confess to missing him after just a few hours, like a lovestruck teenager. At least that makeout had been a production of her drunk imagination, and it would  _ stay _ there, so help her and whatever shreds of dignity she had left. 

 

“I was… going to tell you that I miss you as well, when you're gone.”

 

She blinked, turning her head to him, watching his very carefully focused gaze on the ceiling, a thousand automatic snarks flying to the tip of her tongue, ranging everywhere from ‘miss the view? ’ to ‘sure you miss the peace and quiet more’ but something held her back, a sense that she'd been entrusted with something fragile. 

 

She'd never been very good at taking care of fragile things. 

 

“You saying that just to make me feel better about running my mouth?”

 

“I think you know I'm not one for insincerity.”

 

Okay, she deserved that one. But she was also fairly certain she didn’t have the braincells available to scrounge together a brain-mouth filter.

 

She flopped a hand out atop his, “Stop taking me so damn seriously. I'm too drunk for it. Can't put the words together right,” she rubbed her face slowly with her other hand, grimacing at the slick film of cooled sweat that covered it. If she didn't need a bath before, she sure did now. 

 

“Think emptying a few rounds of my revolver into that piece of shit lift would be overkill?”

 

“I'm sure it will do wonders for our low profile.”

 

She needed a moment to process that. 

 

“Was that sarcasm?” 

 

“It was. Did I do it correctly?” 

 

“I tell him to lighten up, and he goes to sarcasm. I'll be regretting this for the rest of my life,” she muttered, draping her arm across her face, “Yeah Chris, you did good.”

 

They lay quietly together, Ripley’s chest heavy with things she wanted to say, but couldn't find the words for. About guilt for letting such a stupid thing freak them both out, about how afraid she still felt, about how she couldn't lose him, and how it started to dawn on her she couldn't even imagine life without him, and how  _ that _ realization made her gut twist in a way completely different from the nausea of terror and drink. 

 

And what would give her the fucking right to say that to him anyway – he, a person created to be obligated to the whims of every human, and with half a processor functioning on top of that?

 

No. She'd bite the hell out of her tongue and stay focused. He needs help. And she would get him that help. Because she owes him her life, twice over. More than that – because he is her  _ friend _ . 

 

“Where’re you going?” she mumbled a bit more pathetically than she intended when he sat up beside her. 

 

“I'm not off to anywhere, but you are starting to shiver. I think some food and your bed are in order.”

 

She groaned, “God, no food. It's already taking all I got to not toss up right now.”

 

He paused before before giving her a concerned frown, “Amanda, just how much did you drink?”

 

She rolled her eyes and immediately regretted it for the disorienting wave that overcame her, “Can the lecture. I was fine ‘til the whole…” she waved a hand towards the closed and locked door, “It's just leftover nerves. If I was really that far gone, I'd be crying in…” she paused midway, holding up a finger, “Okay, I was crying, but I get a  _ pass _ ,” she jabbed at him to seal her watertight case.

 

“It's not a lecture,” his stern tone seemed to counteract his point for him, as far as she figured, “I need to know if you need to be taken for detoxification.”

 

She rolled slowly to her side, trying to navigate the best way to an upright position with no stomach upheavals, “Four drinks, Chris. Four. I'm not that bad. Any medical here’s going to tell me to sleep it off. Probably good advice.”

 

“I agree,” a gentle hand pressed on her shoulder, “Lay back down. You'll have your bed in a few seconds.”

 

“Can get my own bed,” she groused, pressing her forehead against the shuttle paneling, “I'm fine, I don't need…” she trailed off, the words disappearing into the sea of white noise her mind floated in, “Don't want to sleep. Want to be still for a little bit.”

 

“Of course,” came the placating reply from behind her, “You might as well be comfortable for it.”

 

Two arms slipped under her knees and behind her back, and lifted her to the cushion of her mattress effortlessly. Feeling a hint of embarrassment at how he had to gently pull her hands from where they clutched at his shirt, she settled far too easily under the cover, exhaustion rolling over her instantaneously. The vague awareness of her shoes being removed reached the periphery of her mind before even that slipped into oblivion. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Her throat felt scratchy and dry, her limbs as if her blood had been replaced by solid lead – all sure symptoms of a wretchedly long sleep. She tried to roll to her back, meeting resistance from a solid mass of warmth against her. The subtle mechanical hum of Samuels’ activating systems prompted her own languid brain to make a vague attempt at functioning. 

 

“Chris?“ she croaked, before trying to clear her throat, “What’re doin’ back there?” 

 

“In light of your nausea, I thought it prudent to ensure you slept on your side. I'm glad to see you awake, you've been asleep for over sixteen hours. I was beginning to worry.”

 

“Fuck,” she stated in quietly stunned tone – a new record for her, not counting hypersleep, “Good thing I’m not on shift for two weeks.”

 

Dropping her heavy head back onto her pillow – his arm, she realized – enough of her senses decided to come to the party to tell her his other arm was secured around her waist. 

 

Well –  _ this _ sure was cozy. 

 

“You cooking yourself, doing this?” she inquired, doing an impressive jig around the fact they were spooned together (even if through the covers of her bedroll), and he wasn't making any of his usual maneuvers of retreat. 

 

“Keeping contact with the paneling is sufficient for maintaining my needed temperature range,” he still made no overtures of moving, closer or further away, “Are you feeling better?” 

 

“Better is a pretty subjective thing,” she muttered, chasing off the so-very-helpful conjuring of images from her dream, and how easily she could make that happen now if she just wriggled out from under the cover, “Not sick to my stomach at least, so…” 

 

He remained still, and a touch of mischief rose up among her sluggishness. If she had to endure private mortification, she wasn't going to do it alone.

 

“You sure you're back there just to keep me from choking in my sleep?” she punctuated the question with a subtle wriggle of her hips. 

 

Instead of the sudden jerk and retreat she expected the tease to raise out of him, he softly admitted, “No. I… forgive my presumptuousness, though as you did say, we’re ‘past polite distance’, but I – after that false alarm, I'm… having trouble – er, sorting through my alerts and warnings. Being close to you suppresses most of them.”

 

The hesitant statement instantly extinguished any playfulness stirring in her – he was scared. And anxious. A powerful wave of sympathy and protectiveness compelled her to immediately turn over to face him, winding one arm up his back, and the other into his hair, gently squeezing him close without a second thought. 

 

An odd noise, not quite mechanical, or vocalized, escaped him before he pressed his forehead to her shoulder. 

 

A small part of her wondered if she shouldn’t be frightened and anxious as well, before her practical good sense stepped in with the sardonic reminder of her crying her eyes out on his shoulder not even twenty four hours ago. And that every bit of fear and anxiety pent in her soul awaited all too gladly in the wings for her to take notice – which is precisely why she needed to ignore it for now. One breakdown at a time was about all they could afford at the moment. 

 

He couldn’t even cry. Just suppress alerts and alarms, and try to fix problems that either couldn’t be fixed, or weren’t even really there to begin with. 

 

The fried processor likely made everything ten times more delightful, at  _ least _ . 

 

So if the poor bastard needed someone to hold onto him for a bit, she could at least do that. Not that any good intentions on her part could make her participation in this  _ absolutely _ altruistic. Hell with it. A saint would be ideal, but she held some certainty the closest thing to a saint in all of Zeta Reticula just buried his face into her neck, and they’d have to make do with her happening to enjoy it. 

 

A loud, whining complaint rolled out from her stomach, extending well past the point of embarrassing. Samules’ head slowly rose to look in askance to her, and Ripley snorted softly, “Forgot to tell you, I ate a generator on the way home.” 

 

“My apologies. You should get up, I’m sure you’re both hungry and thirsty –” he began to shift.

 

Ripley dug her fingertips into his scalp and started to gently rub, “It can wait a little longer.” 

 

She couldn’t keep the smirk off her lips when the motion turned him completely pliant, practically dropping back down as he made that same odd noise in his throat again. It almost sounded like a fan’s blades striking a card for a millisecond, only far more muted. 

 

Yeah. It could wait. Her waking organs and all their various bitches and gripes, the bath she could use, the laundry that needed done, searching for Raui, picking up odd jobs to give them more cash. 

 

It could all wait.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Aside from the usual conflicts that arise with inner company synthetics, the Samuels unit’s log shows no anomalies. The same for its maintenance log – no evidence of rogue tendencies.”

 

“Yet after two months, not a single depot or scrap shop has seen anything from a Weyland-Yutani model in all of Zeta Reticula.”

 

“No, sir. The last logged incident regarding a Company synthetic occurred three years ago, involving the attack and looting of a cargo run. The unit was, incidentally, also a Samuels – acting as liaison for a dispute. It was among the stolen property, and never seen again.”

 

“Continue to monitor the region, and neighboring regions. No further information on Amanda Ripley?” 

 

“She dropped off the map for seven years, and reappeared for her certification exam, before taking a job with the Company.”

 

“I want information on where she went, and who she knew those seven years.”

 

“Sir, when I say she dropped off the map, I don't mean she merely lost contact with the Company. She isn't on any roster of any employer, or housing, bills, licensing –  _ nothing _ . She just disappeared.”

 

“I suppose to your mind, she slipped into a rift in space and time, came out the other side, seven years older, and with the skill set to breeze through the certification process.”

 

“Sir, I didn't mean to imply th-” 

 

“Perhaps I ought to make it a bit more clear to you, since you seem to be struggling on your own. Amanda Ripley, daughter of Ellen Ripley, one of the crew who happened to stumble on the biomechanical discovery that will define the next century,  _ conveniently _ made herself scarce about the time we made inquiries into the families of the crew, and… took necessary precautions. She reappears just in time for the data needed for extrapolation of the location of the Nostromo’s destruction site, and scores a ride along on a sympathy ticket. Here we stand with no data, no specimen, and no idea how it happened. And if we continue to have no idea how it happened, we're going to be on our knees to whoever does.  _ Find her associates _ , Struthers.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp! I feel good here, there's absolutely NOTHING that could go wrong for 'em from this point, nothing at all! Riiiight? :D
> 
> Again everyone, thank you so much for your support for this story, every bit of feedback from you guys helps let me know I'm not just muttering madly to myself here in the corner. 
> 
> I'm going to TRY to pound out a few chapters this week for the next part, but we'll have to see. Without talking too many details, I'm going to be unable to write for a bit while recovering from a medical procedure. A bit could mean a few weeks, or it could mean a few months. 
> 
> I'm desperately hoping for the former. 
> 
> And as always, thank you to my amazing beta, fransoun. She really does make this all possible for me, through her support and her filtering of my inanity.


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